New recruits college trained to be military chefs

By Steph Crosier

BELLEVILLE, ON (03/19/2011) New culinary students at Loyalist College will have the opportunity to join the military this fall and get their education paid for. With demand for cooks high the Canadian Forces are allowing new recruits to be taught at a civilian college then go to CFB Borden for their military style training. Photo By: Steph Crosier

New recruits looking to become cooks in the military now have the option of coming to Loyalist College for part of their culinary training.

Starting Sept 2011 the Canadian forces will be subsidizing education for those who wish to be in the military as a cook at Loyalist College. However, chef coming out of the Loyalist College culinary program is different from a cook coming out of the Canadian Forces’s culinary school at CFB Borden.

“As a chef at the culinary arts program at Loyalist College you are training to be a chef in large indoor kitchens and in restaurants style kitchens,” said Warrant Officer Jonathan Bradshaw from the recruiting centre in Kingston.

“Whereas with the military, yes you work in large indoor kitchens, yes you work restaurant style but you also working in very austere conditions literally out of the back of a trailer in the field. Whereas as a chef you would cook two to three meals at a time, as a cook in the military you’d be feeding 500 to 1,000 people at a time.”

Jim Whiteway, Chair, Schools of Business & Management Studies, Biosciences, Centre for Justice Studies said the school went through a very in depth application process to match the needs of the military.

“We went through a rather extensive process of matching the outcomes that we have in our courses to what their expectations are for a cook in the military,” said Whiteway. “ Once they did their analysis of that, they determined that the first year of our program meets their needs.”

The Loyalist Culinary Skills program’s curriculum ranges from kitchen management to menu theory to food theory. At Loyalist’s new chefs are given their first sets of knives and chef whites (the white jackets they wear.) The kitchen they work and learn in is restaurant style with lots of room to move around.

On the other hand a military cook must be able to work in the most difficult of kitchens. Ranging from huge kitchens on bases to cooking in a cramped ship’s kitchen. There is culinary training for each of these areas of expertise.

Before any culinary training though, there is the basic military qualifications course in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Que. that every military member must take. In this course a new recruit learns to wear the uniform, march, survive in the field, and the basic military theories.

If a new recruit decides to go to Loyalist for their culinary training the Forces will pay for the program’s tuition, books, other equipment they might need, and the recruit will receive a salary. After graduating from their program the student will have to serve in the military two months for every month of subsidized education.

The Forces is offering this program is because there is a demand for cooks and to ease the pressure off CFB Borden.

“We have a demand that we do need some cooks,” said Bradshaw. “It takes the stress off Borden. With the program at Loyalist we can take in more cooks without over flowing Borden or lengthening wait times into Borden.”